Justice committee  I don't take the view that deterrence should never be considered, because our courts have told us that for some offences it is a primary goal of sentencing and it is a reality of our criminal justice system. The key message is you cannot expect to affect crime rates by making c

Justice committee  Well, you know my position is that we shouldn't take away conditional sentencing, absolutely, for any sentences, bearing in mind that when a judge imposes a conditional sentence, the judge has to decide that an appropriate punishment is less than two years in prison. If it's a ca

Justice committee  If you look at section 742.1 you will see a number of preconditions listed providing for conditional sentences. What I am recommending is that there be an additional condition inserted in section 742.1 that makes it clear that the conditional sentence is a response to sentences w

Justice committee  If it's a listed offence, if a serious injury occurs from the impaired driving, you would start, as a judge, from the assumption that a conditional sentence is not appropriate. You would look at the specific circumstances of the offender and the way the offence happened. If there

Justice committee  The accused would have to establish that that is the appropriate sentence.

Justice committee  It's certainly better than taking the antiquated historical list of ten-year maxima from the code and simply using that. What it does is it requires a contextual evaluation to be made in each case, and it would be consistent with discretion, but constrained discretion, to use pre

Justice committee  In all sexual assault cases I'd have a presumption against conditional sentences. If the defence lawyer can demonstrate on the circumstances of that particular case why the offender can remain in the community, and still produce an appropriate sentence, then it's an appropriate o

Justice committee  I can begin from this end of the table. I do apologize again for the cattle example. I'll take a closer look in future at who is on the committee.

Justice committee  I certainly understand the frustration that the Canadian public feels. I think we all have a responsibility to try to ensure that the criminal justice system reflects the kinds of values that the Canadian public adheres to, but I would endorse the observations that were made by t

Justice committee  The cattle example may have been ill-chosen beyond the committee.

Justice committee  I understand the point, Mr. Chair, and I wouldn't begin to denigrate the horrible impact that sexual offences can, and usually do, have on victims. The case I was positing involved a 21-year-old person at the time who committed the offence on boys who were 14 and 13 years old, an

Justice committee  Correct.

Justice committee  That would be one of the cases where there would be a presumption against a conditional sentence. There would need to be something particularly unusual about the background of the offender or the circumstances of the offence to make it appropriate to have the sentence served in t

Justice committee  I would put the provisions directly into the conditional sentencing provision rather than in section 718. It would make it very clear that instead of the current three prerequisites, a conditional sentence has four prerequisites. It wouldn't be available where there is a minimu

Justice committee  Thank you, Monsieur Ménard. I am not a legislative drafter, and I wouldn't propose to give language that I would ask the committee to take verbatim. What I do know is that before a conditional sentence can be provided, there are listed conditions that are to be in place when